My crisis communication students will have a field day dissecting last week's Optus disaster-a stark case study in how not to manage a crisis.

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In the early hours of Thursday morning, a firewall upgrade triggered a power outage, effectively severing millions of customers from phone and internet services. But more alarmingly, it also disrupted access to triple zero .

The fallout was profound: at least four lives were lost , emergency services were delayed, and critical infrastructure in three states was impacted. The technical failure was bad enough. The communications failure w

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